After mechanical separation of a SiC wafer from a SiC crystal, the surface of the SiC wafer has a high surface roughness which is not suitable for manufacturing electronic devices. Surface roughness is also a concern in SiC wafer reclaim processes that involve splitting/cleaving the SiC wafer instead of just grinding the wafer within the frame of a SiC thin wafer process. After the cleaving process, a surface roughness in the range of a few μm (e.g. between 1 and 5 μm average peak-to-valley distance) or greater (e.g. between 5 and 15 μm average peak-to-valley distance) can be expected. The roughened surface is typically polished to achieve the desired surface quality. Conventional approaches for planarizing the roughened surface of a SiC wafer after mechanical separation from a SiC crystal include performing a sequence of mechanical and chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) steps until the final surface quality is reached. However, due to the very high hardness of SiC, which is comparable to diamond, this procedure is a difficult and high-cost process.